Thursday, June 30, 2011

Royal Rejoicing

John Ivison has an appropriate and funny column in the National Post today. He is covering the "Royal" visit of two young people from London (in the picture) and his comments will make anyone smile.
The news media will be all over the Royal honeymooners and Gay Pride week here in the centre of the Canadian universe during our National holiday weekend.
I can't think of how to relate these two events. Yes, there are queens involved, not royal. There will be Royal parades and Pride parades, pomp and pageantry at both and ass-less chaps and mounted horsemen (I'm not going to touch that one).
The Royals aren't coming to Toronto, too bad. Maybe it had to do with Pride Week, competition you know. But missing Toronto is a bit like trying to get the flavour of France without going to Paris. Why choose the Calgary Stampede over Pride week? Why piss off the animal lovers AND the LGBT community?
The big media story here this entire week, has been the failure of the newly installed Mayor of Toronto (Rob Ford) to acknowledge the Pride events in his city. Maybe we should be pissed off at the Royals too?

Guest Essay by Kip Hansen I get emails — lots of emails in lots of
different email accounts. Many of these emails are fundraising emails —
requests for fi...

Republic of Canada

The short-lived Republic of Canada is a little-known chapter in Canadian history. From 1837 to 1838 William Lyon Mackenzie and a small group of supporters occupied Navy Island in the Niagara River. The rebels were agitating for a government that was both responsible and representative. Although their struggle was not successful, eventually these ideals came to be represented in the government of Upper Canada and, later, the country of Canada we now know. Liberty was such an important value to this little group that they put the word on the flag, making this short, but important, episode of Canadian history something worth remembering.